


Making a Home

by Welcome_to_Latveria



Series: Quicksilver Week 2020 [1]
Category: Avengers Academy (Comics), Marvel, Marvel 616
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24929179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welcome_to_Latveria/pseuds/Welcome_to_Latveria
Summary: Pietro gets a call from his teammate Janet Van Dyne about his former student Finesse - apparently she has been working with A.I.M recently - needless to say, Pietro is not pleased.
Relationships: Pietro Maximoff & Jeanne Foucault
Series: Quicksilver Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804165
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Making a Home

**Author's Note:**

> For Quicksilver Week over on Tumblr. 
> 
> Day 3 - Friendship

Pietro gets the call whilst he’s out for lunch.

He’s at a small coffee shop that’s a few streets away from Avengers Mansion – the team isn’t facing any crisis at the moment and if something pops up he can get back easily enough – and he’s sitting outside in the sun to eat.

“Pietro?”

“Hmm?” He looks up distractedly – his lunch companion is staring at him questioningly. He is having lunch with Georgia Dakei – a young mutant girl whom he came to know when he served with X-Factor. Their team disrupted Georgia’s life greatly. First they thought she needed to be rescued from her father and practically invaded her home only for her father to turn around and simply give her over to their team because she was a mutant and he was a bigot. When they took her back to X-Factor’s compound they found out she was adopted – which Georgia didn’t previously know – and they took her to meet her birth mother who was delighted to meet her. And _then_ Georgia’s birth father showed up and kidnapped her because it turned out he was a supervillain and, finally, Georgia’s mother sacrificed herself to save them all from her villainous ex-father. In the space of barely a whole day Georgia Dakei had lost her home, the man she thought was her father and then both her birth parents.

When X-Factor fell apart, Georgia had had nowhere to go so Pietro volunteered to take her in. She lives with him at his apartment – she has her own room which she shares with his daughter Luna when she visits (which is less often than he wishes). She goes to a good school that’s near to his apartment which she loves because she had been home-schooled and isolated from the outside world for most of her life.

Georgia’s on her lunchbreak at the moment, though, which is why she’s here eating lunch with him.

“Your phone’s been vibrating and it’s _super_ annoying,” Georgia tells him, rolling her eyes as she takes a sip of her drink – she often gets exasperated as she feels he is hopeless with technology; which isn’t true at all, he just finds it hard to use technology at a speed that won’t cause whatever he’s holding to blow up. “But I’m glad you took my advice and got rid of that weird circus ringtone you used to have.”

He gives her an offended look. “The circus ringtone wasn’t weird.”

“ _Uh huh_ ,” she says, raising her eyebrows at him over her cup. “Then why’d you get rid of it?”

“Because you kept complaining about it!” He protests.

“Yeah, yeah – just answer it, please?”

He acquiesces with a fond smile, reaching out to see who’s contacting him. He furrows his brow as he sees the contact flash on his screen as _Janet Van Dyne_. They’re on the same Avengers team, but if it was Avengers business his emergency beacon would have been activated instead of going through his personal phone and frankly he can’t imagine anyone on his team wanting to contact him for social reasons.

He answers the phone. “Janet?” 

“Oh, Pietro – I’m glad I reached you.” Janet sounds sort of surprised that he’s answered his phone; briefly he wonders if he has garnered some sort of universal reputation for being bad with technology.

“Is everything okay?” He asks – he’s pretty sure it isn’t a crisis but really you can never be sure.

“Yeah… yeah – I mean, no one’s in danger or anything like that but, well… do you remember when I told you about that project I was helping Hank’s daughter with?”

He has no idea where Janet is going with this, but he answers nevertheless: “The thing about getting young women into science?” He vaguely remembers Janet mentioning it to him the last time they spoke – she knew that he was the guardian of a teenage girl and wondered if she’d be interested in getting involved. 

“G.I.R.L – yeah. Well, recently we had been having some trouble with A.I.M because they seemed to have targeted our group with their own young women they had recruited, but we sorted that business with them out and now their girls are working with us.”

He frowns because – again – he has no idea where this is going. “Yes?”

“Well I’ve been trying to track down parents or guardians for one of the girls because she was under eighteen, but she told us she didn’t want us to talk to her parents and gave us your number instead.”

_“What?”_

“Jeanne Foucault – Finesse?” Janet prompts.

He freezes. _Finesse?_ No. Janet must be mistaken – Jeanne wouldn’t… she would never work with A.I.M – she’s a hero… an _Avenger_. Granted, he hasn’t seen the girl for about a year or so – something that is admittedly his fault, but he can’t imagine why or even how she would ever get mixed up with A.I.M.

“Pietro? Are you still there?”

He jolts. “I – yes… I apologise, Janet – I got a bit lost in thought.”

“So… Finesse?” She asks him.

He refrains from asking Janet if she’s _sure_ that this girl they have custody of is really Finesse – the Wasp isn’t stupid, or as prone to making mistakes as he is.

“Yes – where are you?” He asks, having made up his mind. There’s still a part of him that is adamant that Finesse couldn’t have been working with A.I.M, but he can’t take the chance that this girl _is_ her and is asking for him and he denies her. “I’ll be straight there.”

* * *

Georgia had begged to go with him, but he was resolute in his opinion that she return to school instead. If this were a mission or something of the like, perhaps he could have been convinced to let her tag along, but this is more of a personal errand and so unfortunately school takes precedence. Georgia had pouted and complained but ultimately had done as she was told. He’s sure that she will needle him endlessly this evening at home until he gives in and tells her what happened anyway – she is much too curious for her own good.

Right now, Pietro is in Cresskill; New Jersey, and he’s standing outside Pym Labs. The building is large and rectangular with a good five or so stories. He’s never visited before but obviously Janet was expecting him and so is waiting outside.

She moves to meet him. “Pietro, it’s good to see you again.”

He smiles slightly at that – he can’t remember the last time someone said something like that to him and meant it. And Janet _does_ mean it, because she’s a kind and good person who’s greeting him with a smile even though the last time he saw her was outside Synapse’s hospital room where he exploded at the whole team. “You too, Janet – and everything is okay with you, even with this A.I.M business?”

She sighs and laughs at the same time. “Yeah, it’s uh – it’s been a chaotic few days or so over here.” Janet gestures for him to follow, and she scans a key-card against a sensor in the entrance as she leads him into the building. She leads him down a few corridors and rooms, explaining as she goes: “They attacked us here twice – the first time a couple of days ago and once again yesterday. The woman leading them had some grudge against us and had recruited a group of young women who were scientists and also trained in combat – I’m not sure how deeply they were involved with A.I.M but it seems that they were only there because of the lies and manipulations of the woman who recruited them; they seemed happy enough to join us once their leader showed her true colours and abandoned them to die.”

“And Finesse… she was one of these girls recruited?”

“Yeah,” Janet sighs. “She was one of their best combatants – she defeated Nadia and took two of our girls down who weren’t trained fighters.”

Pietro closes his eyes, tilting his head upwards in frustration and confusion. Defeating a hero is one thing… but to attack _civilians_? “The girls she attacked – they’re okay?”

Janet hums in agreement, “They weren’t too badly injured, and it was a couple of days ago now, so they’ve recovered fully.”

The two of them have arrived in a large laboratory that is partially destroyed. It looks as if a tornado has been through the room, and a scattering of teenage girls are cleaning up the mess.

“Nadia!” Janet calls to one of the girls, and a petite teenager with a brown bob haircut comes over to them.

“Hey, Jan!” Nadia greets her with a wide smile, going in quickly to hug her before darting back out again.

Janet smiles fondly at the girl and places her hands on her shoulders – “Pietro, this is my daughter, Nadia.”

He hopes his surprise doesn’t show on his face. He knows that this girl is Hank Pym’s daughter with his wife before Janet, but he didn’t know that Janet was so close with her as to claim the girl as her own daughter. He supposes it is only natural – both the child’s parents are dead, and Janet is essentially her closest living relative.

“A pleasure to meet you,” He says politely.

“Nadia,” Janet says. “Could you please take Pietro to see Finesse? She’s waiting in the dormitory area.”

Nadia nods. “Sure thing – follow me, Mr Maximoff.”

“Pietro is fine,” He tells her mildly as she leads him away from Janet and out of the destroyed laboratory.

Nadia takes him up a flight of stairs, hopping up them like she can’t stand the thought of being still. “Did you know my dad, Pietro?”

“Yes,” He answers, before elaborating: “We were Avengers together on several occasions, and he invited me to teach the next generation of heroes at his Avengers Academy.”

“So… you knew him well?”

“Yes, I suppose so.” He answers. If he were naming the people he was closest to in this world, Hank Pym probably wouldn’t be one of his first thoughts and yet he realises that Hank was one of the few Avengers that seemed to actually like him as a person. He had always treated him well when they served as Avengers originally and although they had not interacted for a long time when he came across the man later on, Hank had allowed him to join his Avengers team – even knowing the truth, that he had lied about being replaced by a Skrull – because he believed that Pietro deserved a second chance. And then he had invited him to teach at Avengers Academy… he had trusted Pietro to shape the minds of future heroes… had trusted him when so many others had written him off.

“Do you think he was a good man?” Nadia asks him. She’s stopped on the staircase a few stairs ahead of him so that she’s staring down at him, waiting for an answer. Her eyes are wide in anticipation but she’s also fidgeting as if she thinks Pietro is going to tell her that Hank Pym was an awful man who deserves to be dead.

“I think…” He pauses, searching for the words. “I think that he was a troubled man – I know that he struggled with mental illness, as have I. None of that takes away from who he was – a hero. What happened with Janet… that was inexcusable, but he tried to be a better man… he helped _me_ to be a better man.”

Nadia hops down the couple of steps between them, and dives in quickly to give him a short hug and he almost steps back in surprise but recovers quickly. “Thank you!” she says, relieved. “This whole thing with A.I.M has had me worried,” she looks away, “they… they showed me a video of him merged with Ultron.”

“Ah, yes.” He says, realising what she means because he has come face to face with that fused being too – he had broken Pietro’s leg, even. “I know that he has your father’s face, but that is not Hank – it’s just Ultron wearing his face.”

“Yeah,” Nadia says, stepping back from him. “That’s what Janet said too… I just wanted to be sure.”

He smiles at her in understanding, and she turns and continues up the steps.

“You know,” she says, calling down to him. “If Vision and the Scarlet Witch were still married, we’d probably be related somehow! Viv – that’s Vision’s daughter – made me a family tree and Vision is my nephew because he was created by Ultron who’s basically my brother because he was created by my dad. And the Vision married the Scarlet Witch who would be like my niece-in-law or something, and you’re her twin brother so I’m sure you’d be on there somewhere, I just don’t know what you’d be called.”

“Then it’s probably a good thing my sister isn’t married to the Vision anymore,” he says dryly.

Nadia grins. “I guess so – though I did meet your nephews the other day and they were pretty cool; they’re my great-nephews!”

“You mean William and Thomas?”

“Yeah – Tommy really looks like you; I think he’s the best example I’ve ever seen of inheritance patterns, y’know? I was confused at first because it felt like he could’ve been your twin instead of Wanda, but then I realised everything that makes him look like you has just come from your dad – Magneto – and Wanda was carrying those genes without expressing them, like the silver hair.”

He’s intrigued. “And our shared powers?”

Nadia considers this for a moment – they have reached the desired floor and continue down a corridor with several rooms with girls’ names plastered on the doors. “Well no one really knows how the X-Gene is inherited – or how people’s powers are chosen – but my guess is it’s probably something to do with the Scarlet Witch’s magic. She probably decided that magic and speed go pretty well together and wanted to replicate the relationship you two have as siblings.”

Well she certainly did that – Thomas is definitely as erratic and wild as Pietro was as a teenager, and William more sensible and mature the way Wanda was (and still is).

William as loved as Wanda… and Thomas as lonely as Pietro. 

That thought strikes something deep in his heart and he decides that as soon as this business with Finesse is sorted, he will seek out his nephew Thomas and check up on him.

“You are a very impressive girl, Nadia,” Pietro tells her kindly as they arrive at the room he assumes Finesse is staying in (based on a hastily scribbled name on lined paper stuck to the door). “I’m sure that your father would be proud of you.”

Nadia flushes with pride. “I… thank you!” She gestures to the door, “Finesse is in there… I’ll leave you both alone.” She turns quickly and scurries off down the corridor, a spring in her step.

Pietro pushes open the door.

Sure enough, Jeanne Foucault is sitting awkwardly on a single bed pushed up against the bare wall. She looks just like he remembers her – short dark hair, a black domino mask and a black and white costume. She looks up at him as he closes the door behind him; she’s… surprised – even though Janet said she asked for him.

“Jeanne,” he greets – his voice is probably colder than he means for it to be, but he didn’t realise until now that he was holding onto the slim belief that this had all been some big misunderstanding. “Janet told me you gave her my contact information when she asked you for your parents’ details.”

“Yes,” the girl says blankly, “I hope you weren’t inconvenienced.”

He frowns. “I wasn’t… and even if I was I would have come.” He sighs, “Janet said you were working with A.I.M?”

“Yes,” Jeanne replies shortly, “They were doing lots of things I thought would be invaluable for me to learn.”

He stares at her in a sort of disbelief. “Jeanne you attacked Hank’s _daughter_ – an Avenger – not to even _mention_ the civilians!”

“Perhaps you forget that I was recruited to Avengers Academy because Hank Pym thought that I was at risk of becoming a villain one day.” Jeanne says coldly.

“Yes! And you rose above that assumption and proved that you were a hero! An Avenger! And now you have thrown it away – and for what? To learn? You could learn the stuff they taught you anywhere!” It is possible that Pietro is angrier about this than he thought he was. “I cannot understand for the life of me why you would do this – you’re a hero, Finesse, please for the love of God tell me why on _earth_ you would work with those villains?”

“I think that you are overcomplicating it, sir,” Jeanne tells him, “A.I.M was essentially just paying me to learn things – for me that is a very easy life – and A.I.M aren’t really a danger… they’re mostly just dubious scientists. I’d hardly have joined them if I thought they were _truly_ evil – they’re not exactly Hydra or the like.”

“You don’t have to call me _sir_ , Jeanne – I’m not your teacher anymore.”

She looks confused. “Then why are you here?”

Pietro is thrown off-guard. “I… I don’t need to be your teacher to care about you.”

“Then where have you been this whole time!” She snarls at him suddenly, standing up angrily, “You just ran straight off to X-Factor without thinking about any of us again! I thought I’d at least hear from you after what happened to the others–”

He interrupts. “What happened to the others?”

She looks at him incredulously. “Arcade? 

Pietro is racking his brain trying to understand what Jeanne is talking about. “Did something happen with Arcade? Did you all have a run in with him?”

Jeanne looks at him and bites her lip. “I apologise… I thought you must have known.”

“Known _what_?” A paranoia is running through him as fast as his thoughts move – what could have happened to his former students. And why did no one tell him about whatever happened?

“Arcade kidnapped Reptil, Hazmat, Mettle and X-23 from the Academy and trapped them in an arena with other teenage superheroes and forced them to fight to the death.” Jeanne’s face is completely blank and emotionless as she recounts these events – but he knows her, whatever emotions she feels are locked up tight.

He moves forward. “Jeanne…”

She looks up at him with tears in her eyes. “Mettle was killed – he sacrificed himself to save Hazmat. He was killed right in front of her… they _loved_ each other… it’s not _fair_!”

Pietro sits down next to her on the bed and wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his side. Her tears are wet against his neck but it’s okay – there are tears in his eyes too.

“Hazmat killed Arcade later on,” Jeanne murmurs into his side, “Or at least she thinks she did… it was just a clone – I found that in SHIELD’s files. Maybe I should have told her, but I thought… she was so broken the last time I saw her that I didn’t know how she would react. I decided she would never have to know – I would find the real Arcade and kill him myself… Hazmat would never have to know.” She says the last part firmly, raising her head from his shoulder and staring him in the eye as if daring him to contradict her.

He doesn’t rise to her challenge. Instead he asks, “Is that why you joined A.I.M?”

Finesse nods. “They had plenty of resources and information about people like that – evil people – everyone needs someone to do their dirty work, and A.I.M were those people for a _lot_ of villains. I knew I could find him if I stayed there long enough.” A slow sort of smile spreads across her face, proud and satisfied.

Quietly, he says, “So you killed him?”

She nods. “Please do not lay clichés on me – I know it would not bring Mettle back or make me feel better. I did it because he deserved it – because he would do what he did again. I cannot bring Mettle back, but I can make sure that Arcade never hurts anyone ever again. I destroyed his body. I tracked down any genetic material that existed and destroyed that too – I’m sure there is a psychopath out there willing to bring him back, but they can’t. I made sure of it.”

Pietro sighs. “I can’t say that I am happy with what you did… but only because I never wanted you to have to do something like that. Killing someone takes a toll on those who do it. But I understand why you felt the need to do it… and I cannot condemn your actions because I am glad that man is dead.” He looks at her curiously, “I just don’t understand – if your mission was to kill Arcade, and you did that – then why were you still with A.I.M?”

Jeanne looks away. “I… I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

He looks around the room they are in – her room, if the hasty sign on the door tells the truth – it is sparsely furnished… empty and sterile. “And you are here now? With… what is it – G.I.R.L? You want to be here?”

She nods. “I… I like science and my abilities will be useful here and Nadia is very kind. She… she believes in second chances –”

“Like her father,” he murmurs, “it seems we owe much to this family, hmm?”

Finesse nods but Pietro can’t stop looking at the empty room. _How many places like this have I lived in? Empty rooms that mean nothing to me because I never stayed in one place for long enough? Never had a proper place to come home to? Never had people to come home to…_

Abruptly, he says, “I have an apartment in New York – it has 3 bedrooms. One is mine, obviously and another belongs to Georgia – a teenage mutant I knew from X-Factor who had nowhere else to go. I offered Luna the last bedroom for when she visits but she insisted on sharing Georgia’s room because the two are best friends and neither had traditional upbringings, so they like to have sleepovers when they are there together. I know you could have a room here with the others but if you wanted you… you could come and stay with us? You could still come and work here, of course, but just if you wanted a place that felt more like –”

“Like a home?” Jeanne looks amused – as if the idea is ridiculous, which perhaps it is. “I have not had a home since I was a child, and that was barely a home.”

“So?” He challenges. “I haven’t had a home since I was a child either – but that doesn’t mean you stop trying to find one. I am trying to make one with Georgia… and with my daughter when I see her.”

Finesse takes a moment to contemplate this, but he can see that she is about to come up with another excuse.

Softly, he says, “Aren’t you tired of being alone, Jeanne?”

That seems to strike a chord with her – as he hoped it would. He and Jeanne are extremely similar – it is something he realised at the Academy and something that he is being reminded of yet again.

“I saw you on the news,” is what she says, finally. “At that press conference for X-Factor – when you admitted that you were lying about the Skrull. I… I was proud of you. It was a very brave thing to do – like when you stood up to your father all those years ago. And I thought to myself that I wish I could be as brave as you – I wish I could tell the truth about what I want. Every time I try, the truth just sticks in my throat – I want to tell people what I feel but I just _can’t_. I wanted to tell Hazmat that I was sorry about her boyfriend – that he was a good person who didn’t deserve to die, and that she didn’t deserve to lose him. I wanted to tell her that I cried when I found out what happened to him because he was my friend even if I didn’t realise it until then. But I couldn’t… the words just didn’t come out.” She takes a deep breath and looks at him almost desperately. “But I realise that I don’t need to do that with you – it seems that you always know what I am feeling, because you have felt the same before. And when I saw you on the news I knew that were getting better at telling the truth, at expressing how you feel… and I want to get better at those things too. So… so maybe I can come and live with you – and with this other girl – and it can be like it was before, at the Academy. You can teach me to be like _you_.”

He cracks a smile at her. “As long as you have some blackmail on me stored in that brain of yours – that is how you made me teach you the first time around, after all.”

Finesse gives him an unimpressed look. “All the blackmail I have on you will be in your closet at my new home – I felt second-hand embarrassment when I saw you running around on the news with that purple outfit.”

He laughs. “Then I have nothing to worry about – that costume is gone and never coming back.” And then another thought occurs to him, “oh and also I have a pet now – his name is Mr Dibbles and he is a tortoise, I think you will like him.”

“So that is another thing I can blackmail you with – you cannot name anything to save your life.” They both look at each and smile, and then laugh again.

_Georgia will have a good laugh at my expense when she comes home from school today_ , he thinks. _How many times has she accused me of taking in strays? First her, then the tortoise, and now Jeanne._

Oh God… a house with both Georgia and Jeanne in it – why did he ever think this would be a good idea?

_I am going to be bullied out of my own home._


End file.
